Increasing restrictions on Transfers and Rentals??!!

[DisDaydreamer]

Dean:

I am challenging this, but all 4 of my memberships are corporately owned, with one contact person (me) listed. (For asset protection reasons, that I choose not to detail).

-Tony

Showing my ignorance here, but my DW and I are both on our contract. Are we considered separate members or one?

 

[Dean]

Dean:

I am challenging this, but all 4 of my memberships are corporately owned, with one contact person (me) listed. (For asset protection reasons, that I choose not to detail).

-Tony

I can't say why, maybe it's the corporate registration though I can't think of any reason why it would matter. But I can tell you for certain that the POS is as I quoted above, that it's per use year and that at least one other person I know of has been allowed to transfer one per contract since the change went into effect. Did you ever combine points from multiple contracts for a single night? I think you'll find out there's something else going on with your contracts that got you on this.

 

[Dean]

Showing my ignorance here, but my DW and I are both on our contract. Are we considered separate members or one?

In the past it's been counted as one membership for this purpose while contracts that are totally unlinked were counted as separate.

 

[greenban]

I can't say why, maybe it's the corporate registration though I can't think of any reason why it would matter. But I can tell you for certain that the POS is as I quoted above, that it's per use year and that at least one other person I know of has been allowed to transfer one per contract since the change went into effect. Did you ever combine points from multiple contracts for a single night? I think you'll find out there's something else going on with your contracts that got you on this.

Agreed. I will call Compliance if not satisfied with the Managers response.

-Tony

 

[Dean]

Agreed. I will call Compliance if not satisfied with the Managers response.

-Tony

As Doc pointed out, this restriction as you understand it and held strictly would eliminate transfers between contracts of a single owner. It would also significantly impair owners of multiple contracts from making high point reservations, especially things like DCL cruises since all points have to be in one contract necessitating a transfer in many cases.

 

[dumbo71]

Dean:

(For asset protection reasons, that I choose not to detail).

-Tony

Um, hear you loud and clear Greenban. I've got some of those built in ....um... asset protections as well.

 

[jbhaupt]

Here is a clarification.

I can personally confirm, that the one transfer per use year is per Member, not per membership. One transfer per person, per year. Not per membership/master contract.

-Tony

Wow, when did that happen??..when I called in Nov for my 07 reservations, I was told by MS that it is per contract. Since I have 2 contracts linked that is 1 transfer and my other one is another DVC with different UY that was another. They said I could transfer in or out 1 time for each contract yrly.

Bonnie

 

[chainkid]

It was recently implemented to solve the problem of point morphing. I know it makes little sense to restrict members because DVC can't track points with their software system and points lets say that are transferred from an SSR membership to a BWV membership have been taking on the 11 month window of the membership that they are transferred into , rather than remaining the same as they were. This has been making it unfair for the smaller resorts and we are effectively losing our 11 month window to people who have had transferred points suddenly become different. Most honest members have alerted member services tio the fact that these retain their original home resort but others who read about this problem are scamming the system. So now all members have lost their flexibility because of a problem that could be rectified by DVC. It's akin to throwing the baby out with the bath water.

It is also an attempt by DVC to limit commercial renting. In either case welcome to reality. Just makes planning trips more difficult and as far as I know hasn't solved the problem of point morphing. It might have curtailed renting but I doubt it.

 

[JimMIA]

My point is that these new policies are not being communicated to owners except when you got to make some reservations. It also appears to me that they are making it almost impossible to Rent/Trade points. You have to either transfer everything you are not going to use in one block or be able to find a reservation at the time needed (which means no more short notice rentals in reality).

While I understand how this cuts down on Member Services Work, it also leaves us with much less flexibility. I also am left with the feeling that they are making up these rules as we go along....

I don't agree. The change in the transfer rule (or the reinstitution of the longstanding rule, depending on your point of view) was quite well communicated to members. It was actually communicated several times via different media. I'll be the first to admit, I didn't read the communications and learned about the change/non-change here on the DIS...but there was no lack of communication on DVC's part.

As far as short-notice rentals, those have always been problematic. Not because of any rules, but because of availability. I also think anyone who rents on short notice ought to really take a long, hard look at the adviseability of that strategy. It's very risky.

I don't know if requesting the names has anything to do with rentals, but if it does, it doesn't affect anyone's ability to do a legitimate rental. What it does impact is speculative rentals. It's harder to book a prime week and then change the names later after renting the ressie, but it shouldn't affect a real rental to real customers.

 

[rainy~daze]

Can I ask one question here about name changes on ressies? I actually rented points from a member for Dec of this year(I am still trying to convince DH we need to buy, but thats a whole other thread), though have only paid 50% so far, the other half due in 90 days. They have advised me they made the ressie in their name and once the other half is paid, they will change it to my name. Do you think this will be a problem? TIA!

 

[dumbo71]

I don't know if requesting the names has anything to do with rentals, but if it does, it doesn't affect anyone's ability to do a legitimate rental. What it does impact is speculative rentals. It's harder to book a prime week and then change the names later after renting the ressie, but it shouldn't affect a real rental to real customers.

Jimmia your post is excellent I just have questions about this part. How is it any different now? I mean I can make a ressie tomorrow in my name. I can then rent said reservation and switch the names to the person who is renting from me.

How is it any different? They haven't, to my knowledge, stated that you cannot change names,nor do I believe they can or will do that.

What am I missing?

 

[CarolMN]

Can I ask one question here about name changes on ressies? I actually rented points from a member for Dec of this year(I am still trying to convince DH we need to buy, but thats a whole other thread), though have only paid 50% so far, the other half due in 90 days. They have advised me they made the ressie in their name and once the other half is paid, they will change it to my name. Do you think this will be a problem? TIA!

No - not at all.

 

[JimMIA]

How is it any different? They haven't, to my knowledge, stated that you cannot change names,nor do I believe they can or will do that.

What am I missing?

I agree. This really hasn't changed much, and I personally don't think the name/address requests have anything to do with rentals. However, it could make speculative rentals a little tougher because presumably you'd have to come up with 6-8 names and addresses to make a two-bedroom ressie look legit. Then you'd have to change the names, and possibly the number of people.

I don't expect DVC to refuse to accommodate that kind of change, but I guess they could if they wanted to. They'd have to be prepared for a lot of howling, but they might still find it in their interest to do that.

I have been saying since the inception of the great transfer/point morphing/stop the commercial renters debate that there are much easier methods for DVC to use to stop commercial rentals if they really want to. All you really have to do is look at the account history in a sensible way and the commercial renters will jump right out at you.

Greenban, incidentally, says in another thread that he's been told that point morphing is history in a few days. DVC is apparently fixing its computer glitches. Hopefully, that will result in relaxation of the transferring rules so that members can do things like Grand Gatherings/reunions when they want. I've always thought the transfer rule enforcement was just a stopgap measure until they could fix their antiquated computer system.

 

[dumbo71]

I agree. This really hasn't changed much, and I personally don't think the name/address requests have anything to do with rentals. However, it could make speculative rentals a little tougher because presumably you'd have to come up with 6-8 names and addresses to make a two-bedroom ressie look legit. Then you'd have to change the names, and possibly the number of people.

I don't expect DVC to refuse to accommodate that kind of change, but I guess they could if they wanted to. They'd have to be prepared for a lot of howling, but they might still find it in their interest to do that.

I have been saying since the inception of the great transfer/point morphing/stop the commercial renters debate that there are much easier methods for DVC to use to stop commercial rentals if they really want to. All you really have to do is look at the account history in a sensible way and the commercial renters will jump right out at you.

Greenban, incidentally, says in another thread that he's been told that point morphing is history in a few days. DVC is apparently fixing its computer glitches. Hopefully, that will result in relaxation of the transferring rules so that members can do things like Grand Gatherings/reunions when they want. I've always thought the transfer rule enforcement was just a stopgap measure until they could fix their antiquated computer system.

Thanks. I did read about the morphing fix. I hope with that accomplished they will do as you suggest relax that limit a little maybe even on a case by case basis where you could request an additional transfer per year as needed.

 

[chainkid]

This is great news and about time. I never understood how they neglected this in the past. If you read their POS it seems they think of eveything to protect their interests. Thanks for sharing

Joan

 

[jjk1107]

Please help out a fairly new DVC memeber. What is point morphing???

 

[rphjr]

I had a transfer done yesterday so I could move from OKW to BWV for our upcoming March trip. Morphing really not an issue for me here, but on my account they showed up as December 2006 OKW points (my first contract). They were september 2006 SSR points. Since I will use these points fairly quick it will not have any negative ot positive effect for me, but say if they were February 2006 SSR points and I transfered them into a December 2006 BCV contract... I now have points with December use year (instead of expiring they have 10 more months of life) and they have 11 month booking window at BCV. This effectively creates more points in a year than the resort has available. Apparently people were doing this to beat the system.. Making 11 month ressies at the small resorts, Then renting them down the road on Ebay or the trade board. This is what Disney is trying to stop... The other issue here is that is if I had BCV points transfered in to make a 11 month ressie at BCV, the system won't let me do that. Right now it takes manual intervention by MS to accomplish this..

 

[jjk1107]

I had a transfer done yesterday so I could move from OKW to BWV for our upcoming March trip. Morphing really not an issue for me here, but on my account they showed up as December 2006 OKW points (my first contract). They were september 2006 SSR points. Since I will use these points fairly quick it will not have any negative ot positive effect for me, but say if they were February 2006 SSR points and I transfered them into a December 2006 BCV contract... I now have points with December use year (instead of expiring they have 10 more months of life) and they have 11 month booking window at BCV. This effectively creates more points in a year than the resort has available. Apparently people were doing this to beat the system.. Making 11 month ressies at the small resorts, Then renting them down the road on Ebay or the trade board. This is what Disney is trying to stop... The other issue here is that is if I had BCV points transfered in to make a 11 month ressie at BCV, the system won't let me do that. Right now it takes manual intervention by MS to accomplish this..

Thank you for this information. Just one other question, how would a member have been able to do this? I would not want to do this as I own at the resorts I stay at, but I am just confused as to how a point would morph. Were they simply confusing the system to achieve it, like the change scam where people ask a cashier for change and then ask for different change and so on and so on until they end up with more money than they originally had?

 

[rphjr]

The point morphing is just a good example of PPP.. Piss Poor Programming... Apparantly the point tracking software has no provision in it for tracking transfered points use year and resort. When transfered, the point tracking software just adds them to your point total of the same use year and attaches them on to your contract with the same life and use as your contract. The points lose their original identity The point software needs to be changed to have a transfered point area for each member. This is probably a major software changed that would require the whole database structure of the point software to be changed. Probably very long and painful, with a crossover period and a verification that the conversion of the database from one format to the new one is done properly. DVC probably has just decided not to fix this in the past because of the time and cost involved. Now that the whole morphing issue has become a big problem, they are doing something about it. Maybe...

 

[dumbo71]

Thank you for this information. Just one other question, how would a member have been able to do this? I would not want to do this as I own at the resorts I stay at, but I am just confused as to how a point would morph. Were they simply confusing the system to achieve it, like the change scam where people ask a cashier for change and then ask for different change and so on and so on until they end up with more money than they originally had?

Morphing is really very simple.

This is all in theory I haven't done this so hold the flames.

Lets say I have a small BCV contract, we'll call it 50 points. I now receive a transfer from a SSR owner. Those points should stay as SSR points and retain the intended use year. Problem is, when those points hit my account they magically become BCV points allowing me more points than I'm entitled to use at the 11 month window. This cheats legitimate owners and creates booking problems at the small high demand resorts.

The other way points are being morphed and manipulated by the "professional renter" is this: The "professional renter" looks for distressed points about to expire. They get those points for $5-$7 per point. They then transfer them into their account. Those points end up taking on their use year thus extending their life. The "professional renter" in turn rents those distressed points out for $11 -$14 per point thus profiting.

This is a big problem and shouldbe fixed soon. I was told by DVC legal that there are members that have obtained 20,000 points in a given year to use for "commercial purposes."